Review: Sierra Burgess is a Loser

The movie Sierra Burgess tries to promote the idea of loving yourself no matter your size or looks. However, the storyline does not portray this well. They use looks as an excuse to be a bad person.

The movie begins with Sierra (Shannon Purser) wrapped in a pink towel as she steps out of the shower. She wipes the condensation off of the mirror and stares at her reflection. “You are a magnificent beast.” she tells herself as she smiles. She walks into the kitchen where her supportive parents ask if she remembered to “leave her insecurities in the bathroom mirror.” Which leaves the audience to wonder if she carries confidence or not.

At their high school, a new main character gets introduced; Veronica (Kristine Froseth). She first appears bullying another student for dropping their books. Sierra walks into school with her friend, Dan (RJ Cyler). The first impression of Veronica: snobby, popular cheerleader which described her exactly. As the movie went on, Sierra, in need of extra money for her car, puts up tutoring papers with her number on them. Veronica walks by with her clique, tears off Sierra’s number and sticks it into her purse. Something that probably would never occur outside this movie.

Veronica goes to a coffee shop with her friends, and they gossip about a cute boy they see. He walks over to their table to get Veronica’s number and introduces himself as Jamey (Noah Centineo). And this begins it all. Veronica gives him Sierra’s number off of the slip she tore earlier, instead of her own. When her friends ask why, she tells them that his friends were losers, and to her, that must mean he is one too.

Later that night, Sierra gets a text from an unknown number. She responds with a “Who is this”, and Jamey sends her a selfie. She discovered that he thinks she is someone else. She continues texting him all night, and throughout the next day. She does not reveal her true identity in fear that he will stop texting her.

As Jamey texts Sierra, he tells her he knows who she is, then proceeds to say Veronica’s name. This came as a shock to Sierra, she believed she could not reach that expectation. The next day at school, Veronica cries in class about how her college boyfriend, Spence, had dumped her because he thought she was too dumb for him. After the teacher tells the girls to wait until lunch for gossip, Veronica storms out of the classroom. Sierra sees an opportunity: she can tutor Veronica in exchange for her to keep a relationship with Jamey. She offers this quid pro quo to her in the hallway. After a few remarks, Veronica doesn’t say a word but later sends her address.

Sierra tutors Veronica and although she finds it difficult to understand the material at first, she begins to grasp the concepts. Veronica agrees to help catfish Jamey so that he believes the texts are from her. The texts lead to pictures, (which Veronica takes and tells Sierra to send), pictures lead to phone calls, and phone calls lead to dates.

The date that Jamey and Veronica go on is one of the main issues of the movie. After they walk out of the theater, they go outside to talk. Leaned up against Jamey’s car, Sierra sneaks underneath and texts Veronica what to say. They had conversations about what they wanted to be when they grew up. When Jamey leans in to kiss Veronica, she pulls away and tells him to close his eyes. She switches spots with Sierra and they kiss instead. This crosses THE line. Sierra hadzero consent, which gave children who watched it a bad example, it is deceptive, and overall sick.

The two girls become good friends, and Veronica’s intentions become innocent. Sierra uses Veronica in order to keep a relationship with Jamey. Sierra only cares about her relationship with Jamey, and she will sabotage whoever gets in her way.

Veronica goes to a party with Sierra even though her friends told her she was committing social suicide. Sierra overhears Spence talking to someone about how he lied to Veronica about her being dumb so that she will be insecure. Veronica later links up with Spence, and he takes her to his car, where he takes an inappropriate picture of them. The next day comes by and Veronica is crying about how Spence dumped her once again. Sierra comforts her but later does the unimaginable.

When Jamey meets Veronica at their football game against each other, they kiss. And Sierra sees this happening. So instead of going to talk to Veronica about it, she decides to expose her for everyone to see. Sierra hacks into Veronica’s Instagram and posts about her break up with Spence, including the photo of the both of them.

Sierra only cared for herself and nobody else. All this, because Veronica tried to play along with Sierra’s catfishing. There could have been a million other ways to solve this problem; using your friends’ weakness against them, should not be one of them.

Jamey gets hurt on the field while looking at the picture of Veronica (on the Jumbo-Tron), and Sierra runs out onto the field. Jamey finds out Sierra had been catfishing him, and he tells both Veronica and Sierra to never speak to him again.

Sierra made many mistakes, and maybe she could apologize for them, but she does not deserve a happy ending. After everything that happened, Sierra writes and sings a song, and everyone magically forgives her for the wrongs she commits. The writers thought Sierra should get the girl and boy astound the viewer. She should be punished in some way, not everything can be forgiven.

The idea that Veronica and Sierra become ‘best friends’ is cliche and unrealistic. This happens in every movie ever, but rarely ever happens off the screen. Had the movie been about how Veronica changed, it would have been better. Veronica became a better person who no longer cared for status or if someone’s friend was a loser. She befriended Sierra, and not for the wrong reasons.

The way this movie ended was a tragedy. Yes, it is a movie, but let’s be realistic. How can someone do all she has done and still get the happy ending? This movie’s predictability makes it not worth seeing. Nothing different occurs and has an undeserved “happy ending”. Although this movie did touch on some important topics, such as mental health and body positivity, it was overall complete trash.